It Took Long Enough But… The Gloves Finally Came Off

After the first debate, most of us, myself included, were largely underwhelmed by Trump’s performance. The brash candidate who was nominated by the Republican party, largely due to his anti-establishment credentials and willingness to call out politicians on their duplicitous actions and statements, was almost entirely absent. Trump seemed not only unprepared, he seemed unwilling to call out Hillary on her many flaws, and the move in the odds reflected that. Even worse for Trump’s odds, all of Wikileaks’ transcripts from Hillary’s paid speeches were almost entirely muted by Trump’s video leak, which caused his odds to fall drastically. Despite the sharp fall in the odds for Trump, I stated the following:

I think perhaps the only shot Trump has to win is to totally pull out the stops in the next two debates and get Hillary in a “gotcha” moment that he can play on repeat in commercials until election day. He will need to be the reckless, brash candidate that won him the Republican nomination in the first place, and not be afraid to mention the Clinton Foundation and the many Hillary scandals. It will be tougher to do so in the second debate, with known Trump hater and MSM employee Anderson Cooper moderating, but he might have an easier time in debate three with Chris Wallace of Fox News Sunday moderating. He also needs to be prepared to deflect the coming criticism of the video release with the actions of Bill Clinton, and possibly even quote some things he has said to Trump.

And, as the pre-debate press conference from Trump indicated, he had already taken the gloves off before the debate. He lined up four women, three of whom had accused Bill Clinton of sexual harassment and assault, with the fourth being a rape victim whose perpetrator was defended by Hillary. All of them supported Trump, and stated that Hillary condoned Bill’s behavior, and helped to cover it up. Trump pivoted to Bill’s conduct to deflect from the video release that was immediately seized upon by both Hillary and Anderson Cooper. And the looks on Bill’s and Chelsea’s faces spoke volumes…

As the debate began, it seemed that right away, nothing was off limits to Trump. He stated that he could bring in a special prosecutor to investigate Hillary’s emails, and stated that “lives have been destroyed for doing 1/5th of what you have done… You should be ashamed.” After Hillary had her chance to state that fact checkers should be fact checking Trump, and state that “someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country”, he interrupted her with the following statement… “Because you would be in jail”.

While I’m not necessarily sure this is the line he can play on repeat until election day, it is what got him the Republican nomination in the first place – his willingness to say what other candidates are not willing to say about each other. This debate was Trump’s chance to show that he still had it in him to really WIN the election… and he seized the moment and ran with it.

While I’m anything but a fan of Bernie Sanders, and see him as very out of touch relative to his popularity, he was at least a real, consistent candidate, who always stood by his principles. Trump is fortunate to be facing Hillary instead of Sanders, because I wholly believe given the current political climate in this country, Sanders would win in a landslide. Regardless, the same populist appeal that launched Sanders’ campaign and was inherent in his popularity was what got Trump the nomination in the first place; I believe they are merely two sides of the same coin. And Trump astutely made an appeal to Sanders voters, noting that he believed the nomination was “stolen” from Sanders by Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the DNC. Like Trump, I was very surprised to see Sanders sign on with Hillary’s campaign, and abandon all of the principles he worked towards over the course of his career.

All in all, Trump did exactly what he needed to do last night to keep himself in the race. While his performance wasn’t perfect, he successfully persuaded a lot of people to vote for him who were on the fence about their voting decision. There will likely be further leaks from Hillary’s team in regards to Trump’s personal conduct, and there is still the final debate to come. However, the last debate will be moderated by Chris Wallace of Fox News, who will likely not be nearly as biased against Trump as Lester Holt and Anderson Cooper. Even so, the odds are still strongly against Trump, and the media, establishment, and long list of billionaires are still firmly in Hillary’s camp. If Trump is somehow able to improve upon his standing after this debate, it will be extremely interesting to watch how those specific people shilling for Hillary react, especially if a Trump win becomes the likely outcome.

And to those who want to judge Trump based on a private conversation from over ten years ago, instead of the merits of his policies… instead of saying something myself, I will quote a couple others. The first is anonymous, and the second is from my Twitter follower Green Star Paradox, who has an excellent website and Twitter feed. Their quotes are below:

This is not a partisan post. Like or hate whoever you want- we are a nation of over 300 million people with very real issues with our economy, healthcare, and security. The entire debate has focused on one conversation. Clearly one private conversation over a decade ago is more important than the fate of our country. If you think this is a priority please go back to watching reality television – you are everything that is wrong with this country.

She cannot believe no one is there to save her right now. We are witnessing the first time in history that someone has called out the Clinton family for their crimes on live TV. All the accusations of racism, sexism, bigotry, homophobia, Islamophobia. All the castigating and instigating. All the hate-framing. All the media megaphones. All the news stations, university chancellors, corporate PR campaigns. All the Correct The Record paid mercenary civilians. All the social justice activists whose peace signs have been turned into pitchforks by this very apparatus.

And look how quiet ALL THAT NOISE got the minute someone was brave enough to stand up, risk it all, and say one true sentence in the face of all the blaring megaphones.

It took a madman. It took a simpleton. It took a child, to speak up and tell the world the emperor has no clothes.

Note: There will be no odds update from Free Market Shooter after this debate. The odds have not moved enough from the prior odds update, and there was and still is significant rebalancing being done by the oddsmakers at Betfair. Stay tuned to Free Market Shooter for further election odds updates, which will come when the time is pertinent. In the meantime, feel free to check out the odds for yourself at Betfair’s US Election section.